“The unexamined life is not worth living.” - Socrates, Apology
“Every night we must call ourselves to account: ‘What bad habit have I cured today? What fault have I resisted? In what respect am I better?’” - Seneca, On Anger
“Progress is not made by those who are constantly looking for excuses, but by those who focus on what is within their control.” - Epictetus, Enchiridion
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.” - Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5: “How It Works,” p. 62
This post is personal to me. I am in recovery and have been sober going on seven years. I grew up in an alcoholic family, became an alcoholic myself, learned how to abuse both prescription and over-the-counter drugs, and eventually found myself in three twelve-step programs. The first was Al-Anon shortly after high school, the second and serious one was Celebrate Recovery, and the third one was Alcoholics Anonymous. I am proof that it works, and thousands of people do recover from whatever ails them by taking the steps and putting them into practice. However, I don’t go to a lot of meetings, don’t exactly have a traditional sponsor, and am critical of certain things heard in a lot of meetings. But I will discuss what those are later in this post.
My favorite thinkers are Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Buber, Lev Shestov, and the Stoics. If I were not exposed to them, I honestly do not think I could have gotten sober. The roots of the steps are, namely, in the Oxford Group, a group of Christians that sought to actually practice what Christ preached. You could say that they were the first “Nondenominational” Christians in the modern world. The idea that you are responsible for your actions, that you stand alone before God or a Higher Power, that you take a daily moral inventory, that you make amends to those harmed, commit to changing your life for the better, and try to be of service to others is something everyone should seek to do, whether you are an addict/alcoholic or not. The steps are biblical principles as well as classical philosophical ones; Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu all carry nuggets of the steps. They are all, as Alcoholics Anonymous (or “The Big Book”) says, “Meant to be suggestive only.” I take all these very seriously, and I believe that in the early days of AA and the formation of other fellowships, it one hundred percent worked. For any addict or alcoholic, a psychic change, a radical reformation of who you are, is the only option, and if you don’t do that, family, friends, and your job will all turn you away, and you’ll end up dead eventually. That is the cold, hard truth. But now, all these great fellowships are less effective, and I am going to state my reasons why.
- “The dreaded G-word.” Newcomers in the program tend to struggle with the idea of God, and that is completely ok. But as I see it, you are expected, at some point, to accept that there has to be something out there that cares for you and can help you. Bob Smith, Bill Wilson, and all the pioneers of AA believed in the classical definition of God: An omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent force that can have a relationship with people. They were Christians and believed in the biblical idea of God, hence why the third and eleventh steps refer to God as “Him.” However, let’s say someone is not raised a pious Christian or just isn’t sold on it; That is perfectly acceptable. Maybe he likes what Epictetus writes about God or what Marcus Aurelius writes. Maybe he is interested in how Confucianism and Daoism view the creator. Maybe he describes himself as a Pantheist, Panentheist, or as just a general theist. This is all perfectly ok. What I see at contemporary AA meetings is not people expressing the idea that there is a God that takes a role in the individual’s life but rather stating that God is, really, an acronym for “Group of drunks.” The message here is that the real Higher Power is the fellowship of AA or whatever other fellowship you belong to. This, in my eyes, fosters co-dependence rather than independence. It is perfectly ok, in my opinion, when you are on your second step, that you come to believe in a Power greater than yourself that can restore you to sanity, to believe that the fellowship is a Higher Power. But when you take that third step, when you decide to turn everything over to God as you understand Him, you realize that there must be something out there working through the men and women in the fellowship, the people that you hear from the podium at meetings. I think the co-dependency piece is an issue.
- Steps four through ten are all about taking a moral inventory, acknowledging your wrongs, making amends to those harmed, and repeating the process daily. I think that the approach to taking inventory has been psychologized way too much. When I am at a meeting and I want to hear about taking inventory, I hear a lot about feelings. Feelings are normal, but it’s what we do with them that matters. The world simply does not care how you feel; Right is right, wrong is wrong, and you will either admit your defects of character or not.
- Sponsorship styles are also an issue. When Socrates was running around Athens with his students, you could say he was their “sponsor” in the art of rational inquiry. Socrates didn’t tell anyone what to do; he simply gave an opinion. Confucius, too, claimed not to invent anything new. In early AA, meetings were optional, and sponsorship was highly suggested, but it was participatory rather than autocratic. I encounter so many people in AA who have a long time in recovery who say, “I am going to tell you how to take the steps.” That does not work for me; Maybe, just maybe, it works for someone else, but I am not one of them. I would rather have my sponsor look at me and say, “We’re going to take the steps together.” When Epictetus and Seneca advised people, they did not demand complete authority, demanding that their disciples follow what they said without question, but fostered independence in their students. I have seen people relapse because of autocratic forms of sponsorship, and I think it just does not work for most people.
- This is probably the most controversial statement that I will make. Modern AA and other fellowships tend to believe that you can never recover from alcoholism or addiction. To me, this is utter insanity. I have recovered, as countless other people have, if I take it, literally, a day at a time. Slogans like “Meeting makers make it” just crush me. In my opinion, meeting makers don’t make it. Step takers, not meeting makers, make it.
- The twelve-step program being mandated at the legal level for criminal offences is a terrible thing. A majority of severe alcoholics and addicts who get court-ordered to go to AA or NA probably hate going. Why? Because they’re forced to. This needs to be voluntary, not forced. Forcing an alcoholic or addict to change in ninety days is a recipe for a relapse. A common slogan found on the walls of many detoxes is “Addiction is not a choice; It’s a disease.” My own opinion on that is that addiction is a choice that becomes a disease.
Hopefully, this post fosters dialogue about the illness of alcoholism and addiction and a solution to it, and potentially helps someone out there struggling.